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Page 34
"Good-morning, Rip Van Winkle," said May, when she entered the
breakfast-room.
"Why, is that clock--just look at the time! I forgot to wind my watch
last night, and I hadn't the faintest idea what time it was when I got
up this morning!"
"Good-bye for to-night, Beth," he had said, and he was going away
to-morrow morning, so he would surely come to-day. No wonder she went
about with an absent smile on her face, and did everything in the
craziest possible way. It was so precious, this newly-found secret of
hers! She knew her own heart now. There was no possibility of her
misunderstanding herself in the future. The afternoon was wearing away,
and she sat waiting and listening. Ding! No, that was only a
beggar-woman at the door. Ding, again! Yes, that was Arthur! Then she
grew frightened. How could she look into his eyes? He would read her
secret there. He sat down before her, and a formal coldness seemed to
paralyze them both.
"I have come to bid you good-bye, Miss Woodburn!"
Miss Woodburn! He had never called her that before. How cold his voice
sounded in her ears!
"Are you going back to Victoria College?" she asked.
"No, to the Wesleyan. Are you going to spend your summer in
Briarsfield?"
"Most of it. I am going back to Toronto for a week or two before
'Varsity opens. My friend Miss de Vere is staying with some friends
there. She is ill and--"
"Do you still call her your friend?" he interrupted, with a sarcastic
smile.
"Why, yes!" she answered wonderingly, never dreaming that he had
witnessed that same scene in the Mayfair home.
"You are faithful, Beth," he said, looking graver. Then he talked
steadily of things in which neither of them had any interest. How cold
and unnatural it all was! Beth longed to give way to tears. In a few
minutes he rose to go. He was going! Arthur was going! She dared not
look into his face as he touched her hand coldly.
"Good-bye, Miss Woodburn. I wish you every success next winter."
She went back to the parlor and watched him--under the apple trees,
white with blossom, through the gate, past the old church, around the
corner--he was gone! The clock ticked away in the long, silent parlor;
the sunshine slept on the grass outside; the butterflies were flitting
from flower to flower, and laughing voices passed in the street, but her
heart was strangely still. A numb, voiceless pain! What did it mean?
Had Arthur changed? Once he had loved her. "God have pity!" her white
lips murmured. And yet that look, that touch last night--what did it
mean? What folly after all! A touch, a smile, and she had woven her fond
hopes together. Foolish woman-heart, building her palace on the sands
for next day's tide to sweep away! Yet how happy she had been last
night! A thrill, a throb, a dream of bliss; crushed now, all but the
memory! The years might bury it all in silence, but she could never,
never forget. She had laid her plans for life, sweet, unselfish plans
for uplifting human lives. Strange lands, strange scenes, strange faces
would surround her. She would toil and smile on others, "but oh, Arthur,
Arthur--"
All through the long hours of that night she lay watching; she could not
sleep. Arthur was still near, the same hills surrounding them both. The
stars were shining and the hoarse whistle of the steamers rent the
night. Perhaps they would never be so near again. Would they ever meet,
she wondered. Perhaps not! Another year, and he would be gone far across
the seas, and then, "Good-bye, Arthur! Good-bye! God be with you!"
CHAPTER XII.
_FAREWELL._
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